{"id":8384,"date":"2018-06-29T06:53:39","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T10:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=8384"},"modified":"2018-06-29T06:53:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T10:53:39","slug":"5-dead-in-maryland-newsroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=8384","title":{"rendered":"5 dead in Maryland newsroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the news broke that a gunman had shot-up the newsroom<\/a> of a daily newspaper in Maryland, my first thought was something like … “It’s begun.” After all, scarcely a day passes without the Buffoon-in-Chief attacking the press as “enemies of the people,” and I’ve been anticipating exactly this sort of event for a long while.<\/p>\n

As it happens, the shooter felt aggrieved by a 2011 news story about a charge of criminal harassment filed against him. He unsuccessfully sued the paper for defamation, and has ever since held a grudge against the paper. So this wasn’t the political attack of the sort that the rhetoric of Trump and others has been implicitly urging.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it was. Journalists covering his rallies have been spit upon and otherwise threatened and, for someone with a gripe and already a bit unstable, the slaughter of a newsroom in an environment stoked by Trumpian malice probably seems like a small step forward and something to be applauded.<\/p>\n

Will Trump tone down his language? No, he will not. “Enemy of the people” has a long totalitarian pedigree, and it has worked pretty well for Trump. He cares no more for the dead Maryland journos than he cares for the would-be immigrant children he has ordered put into cages.<\/p>\n

Will Republican lawmakers finally<\/i> show some backbone and disavow any association with Trump? Some may, but most will not; after all, it’s their base who is spitting on reporters at Trump’s rallies. Many of them, undoubtedly, were gratified to learn that the people have a few less “enemies.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the news broke that a gunman had shot-up the newsroom of a daily newspaper in Maryland, my first thought was something like … “It’s begun.” After all, scarcely a day passes without the Buffoon-in-Chief attacking the press as “enemies … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8384"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8386,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384\/revisions\/8386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}